Year: 2001

So I went to this birthday party last night at an Indian restaurant near Buttock, having left Twattenham Court Road at about 6.45pm. On the way back I had to decide how I was going to get home. Should I take the Central Line and change at Oral Circle, or the Circle Line and change at Onion Terror. In the end I took the latter, and finally arrived home at Maiden Vulva at 11.30pm.

Sorry for my childish behaviour. I’m afraid I am currently completely overwhelmed by the incredibly funny, and yet almightily rude and offensive altubemap, orginally discovered by linkmachinego. I wonder how many of these names our American cousins will even understand.

So tonight it’s the international blog IRC (Internet Relay Chat), which is held at such a time as to be nigh on impossible for anyone in the UK to attend (assuming they work of course). I’m going to try to attend tonight, at least for a while. In the meantime, I will appeal to the organisers of the weekly event to bring it forward an hour and a half so at least there is some possibility that the European contingent will not be coma-ridden the following day.

“It’s Wednesday, and you know what that means. Tonight bloggers will meet on IRC for our weekly night of chatting. Here’s where you can join us: Time 8:30 PM Eastern / 5:30 PM Pacific / 1:30 AM GMT. Server irc.turlyming.net at port 6667. Channel #BlogIRC” [quote from fairvue.com]

Do your duty: Blogger appeals for donations. You can get some stickers out of it, and it’s just possible that with speed might come a re-energised search facility… [Addendum: Is there any way that Blogger could treat donations as an investment rather than a contribution?]

Separated at birth? The stunning director of Magnolia, P T Anderson and Bryan – some bloke wearing a Weblog Wannabe t-shirt. [More on some bloke called Bryan]

Nikolai presents the first annual weblog awards, otherwise known as “The Bloggies”. Much as awards are a fairly dubious enterprise, this one seems to be very much in the spirit of the weblog, including categories such as “Best Meme” and “Best Article or Essay about Weblogs”. plasticbag.org is eligible for at least six categories in my opinion, and it would be nice if someone nominated me for something. But other places that you should certainly consider looking before you make up you mind include: prolific.org, notsosoft.com, riothero, interconnected.org, zeldman.com and kitschbitch.com.

12:01am: May I be the very first UK weblogger to welcome you to the New Year. For good or ill, we are now living in science fiction – it’s the 21st Century by anyone’s reckoning. A strange computer called Hal is about to become sentient and then go insane. Monoliths are being discovered even as we speak. Arthur C Clarke is feelish a bit sheepish generally, I would warrant. [2001]

There has never before been as much weight of fantasy placed upon a year – indeed upon a century. The world has never seen change as dramatic or as rapid. There has never been this many people to will a new vision of the planet from the ether. Reality and Fantasy are colliding, and for once I’m not entirely sure which one will win. May you live in interesting times.

[Happy Millennium from Jeffrey Zeldman]